The most helpful favourable review

The most helpful critical review

All three films arrived at blu ray with VC-1 1080p 1.85:1 encode. I watched these films with 2 trepidations. Firstly, Universal has a bad track record of lousy remastering, like excessive use of DNR (Digital Noise Reduction). Secondly, the films were remastered using the more primitive VC-1 encode, which in some circle is considered as the Rodney...

3.0 out of 5 starsDTS missing?
This is more a review of the box set. My room-mate has the 2disc box set (before JIII came out) and I have the DTS edition of Jurassic Park. The difference between the DTS 5.1 on mine and the Dolby Digital on his is astounding. Remember that Steven Spielberg pioneered DTS (Digital Theatre Sound) and this was the first movie to have it. Do yourself a favour if you have a...

All three films arrived at blu ray with VC-1 1080p 1.85:1 encode. I watched these films with 2 trepidations. Firstly, Universal has a bad track record of lousy remastering, like excessive use of DNR (Digital Noise Reduction). Secondly, the films were remastered using the more primitive VC-1 encode, which in some circle is considered as the Rodney Dangerfield of video compression techniques. More recent films usually used MPEG-4.

While Terminator 2: Judgment Day might have introduced audiences around the world to the possibilities of computer-generated effects, it was Steven Spielberg's 1993 smash Jurassic Park that truly revolutionised modern cinema. Seamlessly mixing CG visuals and life-size models, this movie convinced audiences around the world that dinosaurs still walked the Earth, and in the process transformed the visual effects industry almost overnight. In Jurassic Park 1, many of the dinosaurs are life size animatronics. Close ups are generally animatronics while full body shots are mostly CG. The effect of this is that it gives a weight and presence that can often be absent from CGI.

I am glad to report that all three films bristle with fine detail, and the CGI elements look especially fantastic in that regard. CGI skins of the dinosaurs all look absolutely crystal clear, and the scales and reptilian textures on many of them are virtually tangible.

Jurassic Park: There is a thick grain pattern, which made the picture more film-like. There are fine details, like Sir Richard Attenborough's white hair and beard. The colour reproduction is excellent and vibrant showing off the greens of the island's foliage and the bold red and yellow of the Jurassic Park branding. DNR, if done, is not intrusive. (3.5/5)

Jurassic Park: The Lost World: This movie features a much more muted colour palette and a more refined grain structure, both of which help to serve up a slightly improved picture experience over its predecessor. Delineation is clearer throughout the film, and detailing never really feels obscured by the grain structure. (4.0/5)

Jurassic Park III: Jurassic Park III features the strongest of the encodes.The disc's fine grain combined with the generally brighter, clearer and sharper visuals (real and CG) register increased detailing and vibrancy throughout the film. (4.5/5)

AUDIO:All three films come in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, which is all reference quality and truly electrifying. All three film's mixes sport brilliant fidelity, with absolutely incredible dynamic range, fulsome low end (with some absolutely wall shattering LFE courtesy of little dinosaur footsteps in the night and some great dinosaur roars), with well prioritized dialogue, effects and that anthemic John Williams score.

Equally impressive in all three films is the incredible attention to detail with regard to Foley effects, some of which being almost hilariously brilliant (the little clicking noise the velociraptors' claws make on the kitchen floor in the first film is a great example). Directionality is also spot on throughout all three films, and each film is awash in fantastic panning effects, especially when one of the dinosaurs lumbers into view. But even in more subtle moments, we get some incredibly smart use of the surround channels. About halfway through Jurassic Park III, for example, Macy and Leoni wander off stage left and their voices clearly travel with them, even when the main action is still anchored in front of us. Again and again throughout all three films "little" moments like this help elevate the film's sonic majesty as much as the humongous effects surrounding the dinosaurs do. (All three films: 5/5)

TRIVIA:

Jurassic Park I won three Oscars: Best Sound Effects Editing (Gary Rydstrom and Richard Hymms), Best Effects, Visual Effects and Best Sound. It has a budge of $63 million, and the Worldwide Box Office Receipt was a cool $919 million. And did you know that the glass of water sitting on the dash of the Ford Explorer was made to ripple using a guitar string that was attached to the underside of the dash beneath the glass?

Jurassic Park: The Lost World was nominated for Oscar in Best Effects, Visual Effects. Its budget was $73 million, while its Worldwide gross was $614 million. And if you watch really very carefully, you will see that when the T-Rex bites the traffic signal in San Diego, a street sign on the right edge of the screen reads in part "NO DINOSAURS".

Jurassic Park III had a budget of $93 million, but grossed only $363 million. The Spinosaurus was the largest animatronic ever built. It weighed 12 tons and was operated by hydraulics. This allowed it to operate while completely submerged in water. The effects crew used 250 gallons of oatmeal to simulate Spinosaur droppings.

In summary, Jurassic Park I is a classic and a must-own, but the other two are also entertaining. Both the video and audio are great, although the video is not top-notched. But it really doesn't matter when you start to watch the films. You will be totally immersed in the journey of the actors/actresses in the world of dinosaurs. It is a fun and exciting thrill-ride. After all these years, there are moments that still startled me, making me to jump up from the chair (e.g., while digging a hole underneath the fence trying to escape, the face of the dinosaur suddenly appeared from the other side of the fence!). It is total enjoyment for the whole family. Stop picking at the small deficiencies, but simply just sit back and enjoy the exciting ride. This Jurassic Park Trilogy is truly DINO-mite. Highly recommended.

Finally, I notice that Amazon.ca has a tendency to put many standard DVD reviews in the blu ray section, thus it may create confusion among readers, thinking that they are reading the blu ray review. Be careful, read the date and title of the review beforehand, so that you don't waste your precious time.

Well... at least the first one did.If you're a JP fan, this is undoubtedly one of the best investments you'll ever make. Not only does it include the Collector's Editions of all three films, but a bonus fourth disc whose material seems to stem from special features that were scrapped for the individual releases. The bonus disc isn't GREAT material, but well worth checking out if you're a fan of the series. I liked the particular featurette that covered the big rain storm during production of the first film.Jurassic Park - Is there anyone who hasn't seen this movie? Can a review possibly help you? Ah, well. Nuts to it. Here's my two cents: a modern classic that jump-started the special effects craze and once again proved that Spielberg is the master of quality popcorn adventure films. If by some slim chance you haven't seen it yet, I'd suggest renting some sort of rig to remove that big rock you've been hiding under all these years.The Lost World - someone (the name escapes me) once said of the Marx brothers, "Even at their worst, they're still at the top of their game" (or something to that effect). Spielberg's sequel disappointed many, but I really enjoyed it. It's not necessarily a classic like the summary on the back of the DVD case suggests, but it's still a rollicking good time. The cinematography, special effects and acting, especially by Goldblum and Postlethwaite, are great. If only David Koepp would have invested a little more care into the screenplay...Jurassic Park III - The script has no real source material and Spielberg doesn't direct; Joe Johnston takes the reins. The result: a suprisingly fun hour-and-a-half adventure. The spirit of the original is thankfully intact and the pace of the film is competent. A flawed movie, no doubt about that, but it really surpassed my expectations (the title of the film itself suggests "rush job"). Here's hoping JP4 doesn't disappoint.Well, there you have it. You've seen the films and wonder if you should invest your hard-earned cash on this box set. My advice? Go for it. Crank those speakers up, get comfy and immerse yourself into the world where dinos rule.

When this set came out we decided that we had to have it as our previous versions were on VHS. The bonus with this set of four is the fourth disk with all the wonderful extra features. If you enjoy learning how movies are made the fourth disk, while long, is a great companion to the three movies themselves."Jurassic Park" introduced us to digital dinosaurs, and how fearsome they could be with modern computer technology. This movie advanced horror and monsters movie in a method similar to the way "Alien" advanced movies. "Jurassic Park" immediately became an audience favorite and the new standard by which special effects would be judged. Stephen Spielberg effectively combined in-your-face terror with special effects to keep people at the edge of their seats and in awe of the life-like creatures."The Lost World" unfortunately did not measure up to "Jurassic Park." Many of the characters were unbelievable and there were too many plot holes that were too readily visible to make the movie enjoyable from beginning to end. While there were several parts of the movie that were well-done, there were at least as many parts where the actions of the characters was unrealistic when considering how people in their positions would normally behave. The bumps in actions of the characters just did not allow me to focus on the plot throughout. Another problem with this movie is that it focused too much on action, and very little on the characters themselves. Thus, the movie comes across as more of a cartoon than a horror movie."Jurassic Park III" simplified the plot, added new dinosaurs, and allowed the characters to develop more than "The Lost World." The short length of the movie forced the movie to be more simple than the previous movie, and that simplicity makes for a good movie. The best new dinosaur in this movie had to be the pteranodons, though the spinosaur was great also. The characters in this movie generally acted as I would expect them to, and there were fewer outright acts of stupidity. Even the theft of a raptor egg was done in ignorance. So while it was a convenient plot device, you would expect something like that by someone with only minimal knowledge of dinosaurs. I was very happy to see Sam Neill returning in the role of Dr. Alan Grant. His character particularly is very believable.If you have yet to buy all these movies, and you thought they were all at least good, if not great, this set is an excellent addition to a home video library.

"This is just a delay. All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked.""Yeah john, but if Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't EAT the tourists." - John Hammond and Ian MalcomWhen Steven Spielberg makes an adventure movie, you can be assured that whatever comes on the screen, it's going to be exciting. Since seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, I had waited to see a movie that evoked the same feeling of wonder, adventure, character, and adrenaline that made Dr. Jones's first adventure a classic. Then, once the first trailer for Jurassic Park rolled before Aladdin in 1992, I knew I had found one.An avid dinosaur fan since toddler age, any sort of dinosaur movie sounded like a good idea in the early ninteies. However, Jurassic Park was in a class of its own when released, and remains so today. Based on the Micheal Crichton book of the same name, Spielberg's Messazoic adventure centers around a theme park where dinosaurs have been cloned through fossilized DNA found in mosquitos. Sure, the science isn't rock-solid, but it's more than a usuable base for a fantastic adventure yarn. The action picks up when a greedy employee causes a power outage, and the dinosaurs get loose, terrorising the visitors.All the principal cast in the first movie was fantastic, bringing life and distinct personality to the characters. However, the real stars are the dinosaurs. Created by both Industrial Light and Magic and Stan Winston, the creative geniuses behind Terminator 2, the digital and animatronic creations were absolutely mind-blowing in 1993, and still hold up today. It could have overwhelmed the movie, but Spielberg has always known how to use special effects to enhance the story, and use action and character to advance it. Jurassic Park is a case study in fantastic pacing, fun characters, and tense action/adventure. 5/5In 1997, Universal released a sequel, again based on a Micheal Crichton novel. The Lost World: Jurassic Park, again helmed by Spielberg, featured more characters, more dinosaurs, bigger effects, and bigger action. Jeff Goldblum returns as Dr. Ian Malcom, a man who has fallen on hard times after the incident on Isla Nublar. When he finds that there is another island with dinosaurs on it, one there there are no fences to constrain them, he is appalled, and wants nothing to do with the operation to doccument the animals until he learns that his girlfriend is already on the island.Once we reach the second site, the movie hits the ground running, providing thrills and chills from both the dinosaurs and the greedy human hunters who want to expoit the island to bail out their failing company. However, though the action is solid, the story is a little on the weak side, and Sam Neill's Alan Grant is sorely missed, as he brought so much to the first film. However, The Lost World is still a good way to spend an afternoon if you're looking for some good prehistoric fun. 4/5Jurassic Park III saw far less hype and a smaller scope than either of its predecessor's. Helmed by Jumanji's Joe Johnston, Jurassic Park III features the return of Sam Neill as Alan Grant, an aging scientist who sees his field's support dimishing quickly. When a wealthy magnate offers him a large sum of money to give them an arial tour of Site B, he accepts.What he doesn't know is that the couple is, in reality, looking for their lost son, who disappeared on the island two weeks earlier. In their race to find the boy, Grant, his assistant, and the parents get in a mess of trouble with a T-rex, an over-sized Spinosaurus, and a vengeful pack of Velociraptors.Though the story is fairly weak in the third outing, the narrative is focused. Johnston uses tight direction and the character conflict along withe hungry dinosaurs to keep the movie going. The action begins in the opening sequence, and for the next hour and a half, it rarely lets up. There are some great set pieces including some high-flying antics with some nasty pterosaurs, and a tense stand-off with the raptors. The best thing about this movie is that it doesn't overstay its welcome. It builds to a great climax, and once it's over, the movie is done, keeping everything tight and fun all the way through. 4/5Overall, these are some fatnastic dinosaur movies, and the extras on the DVDs are well worth the wait. Overall: 4/5

With the first "Jurassic Park," ILM broke new ground in CGI special effects. They created dinosaurs that looked incredibly real, and at the time people really didn't know how it was done. I figured it had something to do with computers and the same technology that was used for The Abyss, Terminator 2, and one of the Sherlock Holmes movies back in the 80's ("Young Sherlock Holmes" perhaps?), but still had no idea how it was done, and had never seen anything like it before. This was truly a unique experience. This film told many other film-makers, like George Lucas, Peter Jackson, etc., that anything that could be imagined could be made into a film, which is the reason why we now have the Star Wars Special Editions, the Star Wars Prequels, The Lord of the Rings, and countless other great sci-fi/fantasy films being made. For this reason, as well as the great thrill ride of a story that the first Jurassic Park gave us, this movie is among the greats."The Lost World: Jurassic Park," gave us an even better dino flick than the first one did, raising the bar in what could be done with CGI and animatronics as well as creating an even more fun story. And the story got even scarier at times than the first one. I especially liked it when the T-Rex got loose in San Francisco.With "Jurassic Park III," we got a pretty good dinosaur movie. I didn't think it was as good as the first two, but it was a lot of fun. And we got Pteranadons this time! Well, we got one at the end of The Lost World, but we got a bunch of them this time, and they were sweet! Hopefully in JP4 they'll have the Quetzalcoatlus, which is even larger than the Pteranadon! The whole smart Raptors think got a little carried away I think, but it wasn't as weird after the second viewing. But ultimately, this movie has some amazing special effects shots of both dinos and landscapes, and it's a lot of fun. The only real problem I have with it is that the story isn't as involved as the other two, and it's too short. It's approx. 40 minutes shorter than the previous two films, which is a dramatic change in length of time. Terminator 3 did the same thing too. Also, I thought there were some shots (but not many) of the CGI dinosaurs that weren't rendered as well as the others.The fourth disc contains special features for all three films. I haven't checked out all the special features, but one that was really cool for JP3 was the ILM show or whatever it's called. They had a cool comparion shot reel where they show you the regular shot a couple of times, asking you to guess what's CGI and what's animatronic. I could usually tell, but that was more because of the movement capable with a CGI dinosaur vs. the movement capable with an animatronic dinosaur. We all just know that animatronics are limited in their movement, so they'll bring in a CGI dinosaur when they need more movement and overall capabilities from a creature. But the light, shadow, texture and overall look of both the CGI dinos and the animatronic dinos looked identical to me. It's pretty amazing.Another special feature I watched was the JP2 Compi dance. That was pretty amusing.And of course each film disc also has special features included.Good/Great films, great DVD set.

These movies are the best movies ever. Jurassic Park was the best one, it was also the scariest. My favorite part was when the T-Rex is first seen and the Dilophosaurus scene. The Lost World Jurassic Park was just as good and scary. My favorite scenes are the Baby Stegosaurus and when the T-Rex is in San Diego. Jurassic Park III was also very entertaining, my favorite scenes are when the Spinosaurus shows up and the Pterandons. 2 problems with JP III, length and Trevor Morgan. The movie was too short ( JP 2 hrs. & 7 mins. TLW: JP 2 hrs. & 9 mins. JP III 1 hr. & 33 mins). They should have got a different actor to play Eric Kirby. Trevor is such a dork and his laugh is dumb ( hello, he was in a fricking barney movie for cying out loud. This is probably explains why barney has a cameo in the movie). Anyways everyone should see these movies! And to hell with everyone who complains about the dinoaurs appearances and stuff. They were RE-CREATED and they used FROG DNA to fill in the holes of the DNA strands. So they all probably had something that was different from the Mesozoic dinosaurus.

The first Jurassic Park movie was and still is a state-of-the art classic that was many years ahead of it's time when released in 1993 and I have great memories of seeing it on the big screen all those years ago and it left behind a truly awesome legacy and is one of Spielberg's most inspired movies of his career. The series began in 1993 and ended in 2001 with "Jurassic Park III" Unfortunately, the legacy would gradually deteriorate with time with the latter two as this set demonstrates.JURASSIC PARK (1993): This is one of the best movies that has ever been made in modern times. The movie is a story about a scientific endeavor of attempting to bring back the dinosaurs from extinction on a remote Island 120 miles from Costa Rica, using DNA that has been preserved in their fossils and from amber with a pre-historic mosquito trapped in it. They successfully bring a dinosaur into the world but the scientific experiment goes very wrong. A criminal (played by comic funnyman Wayne Knight), messes up the security system, causing it to malfunction and the result is carnivorous raptors and the ever feared Tyrannosaurus Rex are released into the wild and on a hungry rampage. From there it's a truly terrifying but absolutely fun ride as the family who arrived, now have to face off against and escape the bloody wrath of the carnivorous dinosaurs. This is an awesome movie and is an essential addition to one's movie collection. This is a spectacular work of art from Spielberg and company. Well done!JURASSIC PARK II:THE LOST WORLD (1997): This second sequel is an enjoyable follow-up to the first one but in my opinion, it falls short of what the first one had established and doesn't break any new ground. This second sequel is about the dinosaurs thriving on the Island in the Pacific Ocean but somehow, some of them are transported onto the mainland and wreak havoc on the general public. From there, the movie kind of goes into a gradual downhill dips into cheesiness as the scenes of dinosaurs on the mainland terrorizing the city population veers dangerously close to being similar to those cheesy 1950s sci-fi horror flicks or something like bad King Kong rejects meets Star Wars. It's still nonetheless an enjoyable movie for it's entertainment value but in my opinion, the cheesiness mars the punch that it could otherwise have had. A good but disappointing follow-up to a dynamite movie.JURASSIC PARK III (2001): Here's where it all goes totally wrong and ruins a great legacy with this mediocre and boring third addition to the movie series. Basically, it all begins when the dinosaurs that escaped are returned and released back onto the island where they came from and things seem normal again until two family members wind up being lost and stranded on the island after a parachuting stunt went horribly wrong, resulting in the death of one of the parachutists and a crew has been sent in to rescue the surviving parachutist who survived the accident. From there, the movie boils down to just utter boredom as upon watching this, it seemed like a recycled "Jurassic Park 1993" but without the fun of that movie and it was so short that it just left me confused. A lot of what could go wrong in movie-making went wrong with "JP III". It's just a bad rehash of the 1993 original I felt disappointed to see that Spielberg and company could mess up so badly on this one as to ruin a great movie legacy. There isn't anything that could salvage this garbage. "Jurassic Park III" is one movie that I don't recommend getting and is one of the biggest disappointments in years and is a terrible bookend to a great movie legacy. A total disappointment.This is one of the unfortunate examples of how a movie legacy starts out so spectacular with the first movie but deteriorates with each following sequel and ending on a bad note with the last movie in the series. My advice is to just simply skip this set and buy the first movie, go ahead and get the second one if you like, but avoid the third Jurassic Park movie altogether. The third one is terrible and should be forgotten by most of the public. Although I really don't like the last one in the series, for those who like all three movies, this is a great purchase.

I'm a huge fan of the Jurassic Park films, the first two anyway. They combine groundbreaking special effects in both animatronics and animation with some really good, solid storylines. The Star Wars of its day, this trilogy is an amazing adventure, some of my favorite movies. The first two, anyway.Since this is really a rerelease box set and the point of getting it is to get the films on DVD instead of watching them for the first time, thats what I'll focus on. Basically, the movies are great. You won't be disapointed.As far as DVDs go, the Jurassic Park and The Lost World special editions are about average. They have a fair amount of special features and some nice sounds and transitions, but I think they could have gone a little farther. The menu screens are particurally dark and drab. The features are overall informative and interesting, especially if your a fan of the films.The Jurassic Park 3 DVD is quite a bit better. It's overloaded with features, the menus have a deffinate theme going and its really well desinged. You get all sorts of neat stuff beyond the basic "Making of" features. There are 360 degree views of the computer models of the film's dinosaurs, step by step tours of the process at Industrial Light and Magic, and some really neat stuff about the art and design of the film. The movie itself is pretty bad and an insult to the first two, but its a really nice DVD.With this trilogy set you get the bonus "Beyond Jurassic Park" DVD, which is pure [junk]. It's only worth watching if you're a Jurassic Park fanatic, because its basically table scraps from when the films were produced and some really lame, slapped toghether bits like a split screen comparison of The Lost World's key scenes before and after the post production effects. Yawn.Unless its cheaper to get the boxed set, I'd recomend buying the three movies seperatly and not bothering with the exclusive disc in this set. The Jurassic Park films are excellent movies, not to be missed!

Hollywood found a way to make summer blockbusters redeemable again with this series, by creating a movie franchise that not only is a heap of great fun and nail-biting excitement, but also has some MERIT.The plots of all three of the Jurassic Park movies are interchangeable: humans travel to remote island, perform a bunch of highly stupid activities that ... off the dinosaurs, then the dinosaurs make them pay, typically by eating them. All except for the heroes, of course, whom always manage to just escape the dinosaurs vengeance with incredibly improbable good luck. Over and over again. All the stuff that makes for a great popcorn thriller.But who cares if the story lines are silly. It obvious nobody was attempting to upstage '2001:Space Odyssey' for profoundness. These three films are entertaining and rewarding on several levels. First, little time is wasted in each film before the dinosaurs show up and start wrecking havoc. The special effects are state-of-the-art, and then some. The dinosaurs ACTUALLY SEEM REAL. The makers of these movies obviously consulted with top paleontologists to insure the dinosaurs look and behave as realistically as possible. And the action scenes rank up there with the best of the saturday afternoon adventure thrillers.As far a blockbuster with MERIT goes, think of the countless kids (and probably grown-ups too) who were fascinated enough to inquire more about dinosaurs, whether in school, in books, or watching the Discovery channel. Any movie that is both entertains and inspires the viewer to new ideas and thinking definitely possesses some merit. (And how many other summer blockbusters can you name that provoke ANY intellectual thought afterwards?)As far as the DVD's go, the picture and sound quality is excellent. The Trilogy set is nicely packaged, with a fourth 'bonus' disk containing out-takes and making-of footage.If you're looking for a way to own all three Jurassic Park movies, this Trilogy is a great value. And if you really want to be in dinosaur heaven, get this set and the BBC-TV produced "Walking With Dinosaurs". lr* Sep 10,2002.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.